Don't tell 'em Pike! RICHARD LITTLEJOHN says the 2021 census will be just another excuse by the Government to invade our privacy, fine and tax us more

The justification for having a census every ten years is that it furnishes the Government with valuable information to improve public services and plan for future demand.

That's the theory, anyway. The last one was held in 2011 and was the most extensive, intrusive ever. The census form ran to 32 pages, delving into the most intimate areas of our lives.

They even had the impertinence to ask about sexual preference, as if that's any of their damn business.

Next time they are determined to find out how many transsexuals there are. Failure to comply could land you with a fine of up to £1,000. But, we're told, it's for our own good.

The last census in 2011 was the most extensive ever with a form that ran to 32 pages and delving into the most intimate areas of our lives

The Government insists it must know everything about us in order to provide the 'world-class' public services which politicians are always boasting about.

So how's that working out, then? They've had seven years to sift through all the data from the 2011 census and react accordingly. But can anyone, hand on heart, honestly say that things have got better?

Are the roads and trains less crowded, as a result of ministers learning that more people would be travelling?

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Is it easier to see your doctor? Have hospital waiting lists been slashed as more beds have been provided to cope with our growing, ageing population?

Can you get your children into the local school of your choice? Are there more coppers on the beat? Are your dustbins emptied more frequently?

Has the third runway at Heathrow been built yet? Have we opened a few more nuclear power stations to meet our insatiable demand for electricity, to power all the fancy gizmos we rely upon today?

Er, not exactly. Road space has actually been reduced, thanks to the faddish obsession with building cycle lanes. The NHS appears to be in permanent crisis, and it can take weeks to see a GP, that's if you can find one still registering new patients.

School places are under more pressure than ever, largely as a result of uncontrolled immigration. The police have withdrawn from the streets to concentrate on scouring the internet for 'hate crime'.

In some areas, you're lucky if you see the dustmen once every three weeks. No wonder fly-tipping is endemic. We'll put a man on Mars before the third runway at Heathrow opens. And it's only a matter of time until the iPhones will be going out all over Britain, as coal-fired power stations shut arbitrarily, to meet made-up 'climate change' targets, and we are forced to rely on useless windmills.

The 2021 census, will for the first time since the Domesday Book, pictured, ask for details about all our income, investments and other assets

One area where we do now lead the world is in snooping on and gathering irrelevant information about the population.

We'd like to know a little bit about you for our files.

Plans for the 2021 census have just been released and, next time, it won't be just the now-predictable demands for ethnicity, sexual predilection and gender identity.

For the first time since William the Conqueror's Domesday Book, in 1086, the Government is planning to gather details of all our income, investments and other assets. That early census was so thorough that it was said 'there was no single hide nor yard of land, nor indeed one ox or cow nor one pig which was left out'.

In 2021, hiding a pig in your shed will be easier than concealing the contents of your piggy bank from the authorities. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) plans to use new legal powers, slipped through Parliament last year, to trawl income tax and social security records and compile profiles of everyone's worth.

The ONS claims it needs to build up a database of prosperous postcodes, so that services can be concentrated on 'vulnerable' areas. Cobblers. This is the first step towards introducing a wealth tax and a local income tax, so that the 'rich' pay more.

The census is not about serving the common good. It's about divide and rule, carving up the country into different and competing victim and special interest groups. They are also planning to tap into mobile phone records to track our movements, in an outrageous expansion of state surveillance. Already, Britain has more CCTV cameras than any other country on earth.

None of this is about providing better public services, it's about control. Knowledge is power, knowledge is valuable and can be sold to the highest bidder.

The tech giants already harvest our online habits, which they can then parlay into commercial gain by bombarding us with advertising. Naturally, the Government wants a piece of the action.

Of course, they pay lip service to security. But would you trust any Government official with a shred of evidence which isn't essential?

Never mind individual civil servants and rogue coppers using sensitive information to spy on and discredit others.

Look at the way local councils misuse anti-terrorism legislation to monitor parents attempting to circumvent school catchment areas to get their kids a decent education.

How many times have we heard of Government staff downloading 'secure' records and then leaving them on a train somewhere?

We know that the DVLA sells our vehicle information to private parking companies. Only yesterday, it was revealed that the Department of Health is handing over the medical records of British cancer patients to American lawyers acting for Big Tobacco.

Always work on the basis that no information you supply to the Government — or anyone else for that matter — is confidential or secure, and you won't go far wrong.

The next census, as usual, will be produced in dozens of different languages, many of them scribble. But we still won't know how many people are living here, legal or otherwise.

MPs admitted last week that they haven't got a clue about the number of foreign nationals living under the radar in Britain, because no such information exists and there's no reliable method of measuring it.

Richard Littlejohn argues that the census is not about serving the common good or providing better public services but about control

Best guess is somewhere between two and three million. But don't expect the census to clarify that.

Illegal immigrants aren't going to fill in a census form. Nor are transients, or many of those living in overcrowded inner-cities, where English is rarely spoken.

So, once again, the law will only apply to those who agree to abide by it and the 2021 census will be just another excuse by the Government to invade our privacy, fine and tax us more.

As for all this information leading to better provision of public services, well, last time out more than 400,000 people identified their religion as 'Jedi', but I haven't noticed state-funded Jedi community centres springing up everywhere. Have you?

At least not all the information they gather is wasted, which is why they're so keen on asking about gender identity.

The good news is that, while the rest of our public services are falling apart, we now also lead the world in transgender toilet provision, and the NHS is offering free cervical smear tests to men who define as women, even though they haven't got a cervix.

Makes you proud to be British.

Here's another one of those stories I don't know whether to file under Mind How You Go or You Couldn't Make It Up.

A policewoman has been awarded £15,000 compensation because she couldn't carry an Alsatian up a hill. No, I can't believe I've just written that sentence, either.

PC Kim-Louise Carter applied to join the Gloucestershire canine unit. One of the tests involves carrying a dog up a 70-yard gradient. When she failed to carry a 5½st Alsatian called Hulk up the hill, she was given another chance with a lighter dog called Fizz.

But she dropped Fizz, too, complaining that her legs had 'turned to jelly'. It didn't help that during the exam her dog got into a fight with another one and bit a police officer.

Maybe she's just not cut out to be a dog handler. Yet despite the fact that three other women candidates did pass the test, Kim-Louise cried 'sex discrimination'.

And, with depressing predictability, a tribunal agreed with her, ruling that the test must be made easier and ordering instructors to undergo 'equality training'.

Perhaps the police should get rid of all their Alsatians and in future use something smaller like a dachshund, chihuahua, or some other miniature breed that PC Carter can keep in her handbag.

Had to laugh at the man who blew himself up trying to rob a Glasgow ATM. Police are still looking for his accomplice. Last night they issued a photo of the two men they believe were responsible, possibly under the influence of bevvy

Nick Clegg, rejected by his former constituents in Sheffield, is claiming £115,000 a year in allowances previously only given to ex-Prime Ministers. Why should taxpayers have to subsidise Calamity Clegg, when he devotes all his time attempting to overturn the democratic decision of the 17.4 million who voted for Brexit?